The strange and unexpected story of Chesty Morgan

What comes to mind when you hear the name "Chesty Morgan"?

• People of a certain age might think: "Wasn't she an exotic dancer in the 1970s? Famous for her measurements? She made a movie with Fellini, didn't she? She must have been some red-hot mama, whoo hoo!' • Yes, that was Chesty Morgan, a woman objectified all over the planet for having what one night club promoter called "the world's largest natural breasts! She defies medical science!'' Yes, Chesty Morgan — the woman with the alleged 73-inch bust. • Have your laugh, but listen: The world is a complicated place. Even red-hot mamas have real lives. Often those lives are tragic. Sometimes they are beyond tragic.

She is a small child in 1937. Her father and mother are well-to-do Jews who live near Warsaw. In 1939, Germany invades Poland. Her parents lose their department store. They end up in the ghetto afraid for their lives.

Her mother, Eva, leaves the apartment to find shoes for a niece. She is caught in a German sweep, hauled away in a boxcar, never to return. Little Lillian puts aside food every day —just in case her mother is hungry when she comes home.

Jews eventually fight back. Her father, Leon, is shot dead in a ghetto uprising.

Lillian ends up in Israel, where she lives in a series of orphanages, then in a kibbutz where she studies nursing. She has low self-esteem and worries about everything. Boys think she is beautiful.

What can they possibly see in her?

Read the rest of this fascinating article here at The St. Petersberg Times